Darcy Zabel was 31 when she began teaching at Friends University. Since then she has risen through the ranks to positions of leadership at the university, serving most recently as vice president for academic affairs.

Zabel was chosen by the school’s board of directors to become the interim president after the March 18 resignation of T.J. Arant. Before arriving at Friends, Zabel was an editorial assistant in the acquisitions division at St. Martin’s Press in New York and an assistant editor for Garland Publishing’s scholarly division in New York.

From 1994 to 1998 she was English coordinator for the University of Connecticut’s residential summer TRIO program.

You have been teaching, you are VP for academic affairs. Were you surprised that you were chosen to be interim president? Not really, because in the higher-education industry when there’s a need for an interim president, it is usually the vice president for academic affairs, or they [choose] from a consortium of retired presidents. It just makes more sense for an institution that’s not struggling financially. You put academic quality first.

Did you have any warning this might be happening? No. No. It was a surprise, that part.

What is your goal as interim president? I’ve been here, I guess it’s now 16 years, and so I know this place inside and out, and I know where the strengths are that can be capitalized on as opportunities, and I know where the weaknesses are. What I’d really like to do is to shore up the places where we’re weak and really capitalize on the strengths. Being in the president’s chair gives me the freedom to do that in a way that being a part of a team of vice presidents doesn’t.

Do you want the job permanently? It’s too early to know. It’s definitely changed my relationships with my friends and colleagues. I started at Friends when I was 31. It’s very awkward being president at a university where you’ve been a colleague and a friend and ... it’s awkward. It’s a lot easier to be president someplace that you didn’t come up through the ranks in.

The day you were chosen as interim president you put an image on your Facebook page that referenced Rosie the Riveter and the “We Can Do It” theme ... what does that represent to you? The team-building aspect. I went to a women’s college, so I always have a soft spot for images of women empowered or in positions that are not typically viewed as female. Really, the “we” emphasis, the team-building idea. A lot of women are involved in higher education but they don’t always necessarily end up in the president’s chair. [It represents] just the idea that instead of one person trying to do everything, that as a group we can ...

It’s hard because you have to balance those two answers of being in the president’s chair ... I have an opportunity to accomplish things that I see need to be done, and yet no one person can really do that without a team. A lot of my friends are on Facebook that I work with and so it’s kind of a “ We Can Do It.”

What’s the best advice you’ve been given regarding your new responsibilities? I’ve been given a lot of advice. I think the best advice probably is from President Biff Green. He’s the emeritus president from Friends University. What he told me to do was to remember why I started down this career path in the first place and to balance that with my love of family and my commitment to my whole life, so that I don’t get devoured by the next 12 to 15 months.

What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not teaching or being VP or being interim president? I have an 8 year old. I absolutely love building Legos with him. I have promised him a trip to Legoland this summer and we may not come back. We are Lego freaks.

You mentioned on Facebook the creation of a Lego book ... We were creating stories out of the Legos. We would set the Legos up and then we would take pictures of them and put captions under them. We created a whole bunch of stories for him that way, so he’s the director and I’m the photographer.